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All the Latest Spoilers for Fringe, Once Upon a Time, and The Walking Dead!

Check out a fascinating rundown of Fringe’s final standalone episode. A Lost alum is returning to Storybrooke, under a new name. Michonne actress Danai Gurira previews the rest of The Walking Dead’s third season. Tom Hiddleston praises director Alan Taylor’s approach to Thor: The Dark World. Plus brand new TV spots for Hansel & Gretel:…

Just Yell At This Voice-Controlled AC Unit When It Gets Too Cold

One day we’ll probably take for granted the ability to just tell our devices and appliances what we want or need, but for now voice-controlled technology is new and novel. The latest appliance to start listening to our demands is LG’s new Whispen air conditioner, although the tall free-standing device looks more like a droid.…

RIM’s Got an Anti-Creepshot Patent for Suits

Innovation is alive and well at RIM, especially in the anti-creepshot vector. A new patent, issued to the company yesterday by the USPTO, would cut down on “inconspicuous” camera shots like the ones taken by corporate espionage enthusiasts and total pervs. The patent would let you (or, more likely, your IT department) set a predetermined…

Asus and Acer: The Netbook Is Dead

Netbooks, those tiny, underpowered computers that were once held up as the saviour of the laptop market, have long since fallen from favor. When Dell announced it was ending production the end was nigh—and now the last remaining manufacturers, Asus and Acer, have confirmed that the netbook is officially dead. https://gizmodo.com/remember-netbooks-no-one-else-does-either-5853089 The Guardian reports that…

This Instagram-Street View Mash-Up Is a Stalker’s Wet Dream

As if Instagram wasn’t already an amazing way to snoop on what people are doing around the entire planet, a new website called The Beat lets you see exactly where the photographs were taken, too. https://gizmodo.com/spy-on-instagram-all-around-the-world-in-realtime-5931345 Put together by Rutgers’ Social Media Information Lab, the site uses Instagram’s API to tie geotagged photos to their…

How to Read a Book Every Single Day of the Year

Of all the terrible New Year resolutions that will have been made this week, reading more is one that sounds easy but is incredibly tough. But with a slew of reading tech available, perhaps now is the best time ever to churn through the pages like never before. Jeff Ryan explains on Slate how he…

You Can Now Pirate Apps On Your iPhone Without Jailbreaking

Apple must have heaved a great sigh of relief when it heard its Christmas wish had been answered—Installous, the jailbroken iOS app pirating app from the Hackulous community, was finally dead. But not so fast, Apple. Now anyone can install pirated apps, and without having to jailbreak too. The old adage is holding true. Where…

Eye-Controlled Computers Are Now a Real Thing

When we tried out a prototype of Tobii’s eye controller this time last year, it made us believe in technology again. Unlike many prototypes, though, it’s now a real thing. https://gizmodo.com/i-just-controlled-windows-8-with-my-eyes-and-it-made-me-5874172 Tobii has announced the launch of REX: a USB-connected device that allows computers to be controlled using Gaze UI. That software lets users navigate,…

Samsung’s lost a bid to keep sales data secret during its legal battle with Apple. Time to spill. [Bloomberg]

The Simplest Turn-by-Turn Navigation System Ever

There’s plenty wrong with turn-by-turn navigation, so here’s a completely different solution: boil the route down into the most simple set of rules possible, and leave the user to it. https://gizmodo.com/what-turn-by-turn-navigation-should-look-like-5968413 There are plenty of systems that can be described far more simply than they initially appear—and directions are one of them. So instead of…

Try Editing Your Vimeo Masterpieces On This Monstrosity of Analog Film

Digital video editing has been so engrained in our collective techno-consciousness, that it seems absurd that film was once—actually—film, and movies had to be assembled by hand on a huge table like this. It’s a Steenbeck flatbed editor, and it was pretty ubiquitous in the film world until digital took over. In college, as a…

Relive 2012 As It Played Out On Twitter

When it comes to reliving headline making news events, the spinning newspaper effect is old and antiquated. Social networks have long since replaced printed media as the go to source for breaking news, so visual effects artist Jeremiah Warren has animated a 2012 year in review using nothing but tweets from the past 365 days.…

Unorthodox Alphabet Blocks For Your Budding Mad Scientist

It doesn’t matter what unspeakable acts or atrocities they grew up to commit, at one point all mad scientists—from Dr. Frankenstein to Dr. No—started life as adorable infants. But what turns an innocent toddler into an adult with a penchant for world domination? This set of mad scientist-themed alphabet blocks might be one cause. Made…

Helicopter Crashes Right on the Beach While Sunbathers Watch In Disbelief

I don’t know what’s wrong with helicopters in Brazil, but they keep crashing them in the most idiotic ways possible. Check out this rescue helicopter going a little bit too close to the water until it finally crashes against the waves. Thankfully, nobody was hurt. [Bing] https://gizmodo.com/this-is-the-weirdest-most-hilarious-helicopter-acciden-5887977

Report: Apple Testing iPhone 6 Right Now

HERE WE GO AGAIN, GUYS. It’s barely 2013 and we can officially kick off the hysterical iPhone 6 rumoring: The Next Web talked to iOS devs who are seeing The Next New iPhone testing their apps. Now. This isn’t surprising, of course—we know there’s a new iPhone coming, and there will be a new iPhone…

Panda blood could hold the secret to the next generation of antibiotics

Pandas aren’t exactly renowned for their health and hardiness — if anything, they’ve earned a reputation as a fragile, sex-averse species that needs constant human conservation just to keep from going extinct. Well, they might be about to repay the favor in a big way, thanks to a powerful antibiotic locked inside their blood. That’s…

SeatGeek: Buying Tickets Just Got as Painless as Possible

SeatGeek’s been around the web for a while, so you might already be familiar with the concept. With the mobile version, though, the developers chopped out a lot of non-essential features. What’s left is a focused, easy to use app that still gives us all the info we need to snag the perfect seat. What…

Ancient hominids may have left the trees, but we never abandoned them

If you’re quickly trying to define what sets humans apart from other primates, you might first point to our greater intelligence and our capacity for complex language. The next big difference is that we walk on two feet and stay out of the trees… except, as this video explains, it’s not quite that simple. Part…

This Awesome Spiral Apple Slicer Is a Good Excuse for a Resolution

In January everyone makes the same New Year’s resolution to be healthier. And not everyone follows through—you can tell because the gyms are emptier. You can at least start on the eating better portion with the Giro apple slicer ($45). It’ll be an easy one to keep because the slicer gives you awesome spirals of…

This steampunk girls’ adventure novel might actually knock your goggles off

It’s hard not to love a book that begins with the sentence, “And then there was an explosion.” It’s also hard not to love a young-adult-girl-power-steampunk-romp that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Adrienne Kress, author of the middle grade Alex and the Ironic Gentlemen, has entered the young adult market with a bang. Her newest…